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Plea Bargaining

Plea Bargaining ProcessThe plea bargaining process is very important to the criminal justice system because without it the criminal justice system would grind to a halt. Plea-bargaining is important because if every case went to a trial it would take years for criminals to get from the time of arrest till the time of trial. The video we saw showed an example of how the process works to get criminals who plea guilty to committing minor crimes through the system faster so that the courts can concentrate on those criminals who commit major crimes. In this video you can see some of the variables that enter into the plea-bargaining system and how they can be fair and unfair to the parties involved. You can see the quality of legal representation provided by the public defenders office and how they have the discretion to what happens to these criminals. And we can explore options to improve the system to operate more smoothly and provide better justice to the criminals for the community.

In this video we saw a few cases in which people committed crimes including public drunkenness, prostitution, and even a guy who was doing push-ups in the train tracks which caused a train to stop. In all cases the criminals were career criminals who have been in and out of trouble for years and in all cases they plead guilty and received little or no jail time. While you might think this is good for the criminals and they should be happy about their sentences it is not good. These criminals suffer from many problems, are in some cases homeless, and they are in need of desperate help. They last place they want to be or should be is back on the streets. There are few variables that cause public defenders and prosecutors to come to the bargains that they do and a very big reason is that jails are overcrowded and can't handle the volume of people that commit crimes. So in that case if someone doesn't commit a very serious crime most often they will return to the streets...

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...﻿PleaBargainingPleabargaining is extremely popular in our criminal justice system. In fact, 90 percent of all criminal cases are negotiated through plea bargains. The defendant, the victim, law enforcement officials, the prosecutor, and the state, all benefit in various and significant ways from plea bargains. In this paper I will discuss how pleabargaining ensures that the criminal justice system is not overrun by criminal cases. I will also explain what pleabargaining means and where it originated from. As a police officer, I think pleabargaining is a great tool for it to be used in the criminal justice system.
Many people hear the words “plea bargain” and never really understand what it means. According to the Dictionary of Legal Terms, a plea bargain is “the process whereby the accused and the prosecutor negotiate a mutually satisfactory disposition of the case.” There are two types of plea bargains, the charge bargain and the sentence bargain. For a charge bargain, the prosecutor agrees to either charge the defendant with a lesser offense or drop some of the charges altogether. For a sentence bargain, the prosecutor recommends a less severe sentence than the penalties typically associated with the offense, and the defendant knows this...

...Brittany Rulli
According to Timothy Sandefur’s In Defense of PleaBargaining article, “a plea bargain is a contract with the state. The defense agrees to plead guilty to a lesser crime and receive a lesser sentence, rather than go to trial on a more severe charge where he faces the possibility of a harsher sentence.” We are also told in The New York Times Article; Federal Law on Sentencing is Unjust, Judge Rules that “about 97 percent of federal criminal convictions nationwide were the result of plea bargains.”
In a Frontline Program- The Plea we watched in class there were interviews of people involved in three separate cases that had involved the plea bargain. In this video a man named Charles Gampero had gotten into a fight outside of a bowling alley and walked away leaving the victim unharmed and alive. After he had left the victim had been killed, but Gampero had been charged with second degree murder and attempt to kill. The prosecutors had told Gampero that they would give him a plea of dropping the charges to manslaughter, giving him 7-21 years and that if he didn’t he would get a mandatory 25 to life. Gampero said because he was positive that he was not at fault and had left the victim unharmed he had wanted to take it to trial. In the end Gampero wound up taking the plea and not taking it to trial because the judge had scared him so...

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PleaBargaining Paper
Linda Robinson CJA/224
09/29/2014
Many successful criminal prosecutions in the Unites States end not with Jury trials, but with plea bargains. Plea bargains are agreements between defendants and prosecutors where defendants agree to plead guilty to some or all of the charges against them in exchange for concessions from the prosecutors. These agreements allow prosecutors to focus their time and resources on other cases and reduce the number of trials that judges need to oversee. In plea bargains, prosecutors usually agree to reduce defendant’s punishment. They often accomplish this by reducing the number or severity of the charges against defendants. They might also agree to recommend that defendants receive reduced sentences. Some plea bargains require defendants to do more than simply plead guilty. For example, prosecutors often offer favorable plea bargains to defendants who agree to testify for the state in cases against other defendants. Although pleabargaining allows the criminal justice system to conserve resources, it is controversial. Some commentator’s believer that it is inappropriate in that it allows defendants to get off to easily. Others argue that it is too coercive and undermines important constitutional rights. Pleabargaining does require defendants to waive...

...PleaBargaining
Lidia Nasukowicz, Angela Peeler, Sean Schaffer, Robin Webb, Miranda Williams
CJA/224
February 24, 2014
Plea-Bargaining originally started in the early part of the nineteenth century with the violation of liquor laws. It is one of many issues viewed in the criminal justice system. It may or may not be beneficial to the accused person allowing them a lighter sentence. This paper will discuss definition of pleabargaining, distinguish between charge bargaining and sentence bargaining, compare and contrast the pros and cons associated with the use of plea bargains, and describing how pleabargaining reflects or thwarts the crime control and due process models of criminal justice.
Pleabargaining,(criminal law) a negotiation in which the defendant agrees to enter a plea of guilty to a lesser charge and the prosecutor agrees to drop a more serious charge; "his admission was part of a plea bargain with the prosecutor"; "pleabargaining helps to stop the courts becoming congested"(Princeton.edu)
The benefit of pleabargaining for most defendants, is to pleabargaining is receiving a lighter sentence for a less severe charge than might result from a...

...The Ins and Outs of PleaBargaining
Alisha Holt
CJA224
June 8, 2013
Peter Helfer
The Ins and Outs of PleaBargaining
Introduction
The concept of pleabargaining became a common means to resolve criminal cases in the early 1900s because not everyone that was accused of a crime had a lawyer to represent them in a trial. As the criminal justice system evolved, and there were more and more cases to prosecute, plea-bargaining was used more often so that all parties would have a faster resolution to the case, as opposed to going through a lengthy trial. The definition of pleabargaining is “the process whereby the accused and the prosecutor in a criminal case work out a mutually satisfactory disposition of the case subject to court approval [that] usually involves the defendant’s pleading guilty to a lesser offense or to only some of the counts of a multicounty indictment in return for a lighter sentence than the possible for the graver charge.” (Siegel, Schmalleger, &amp; Worrall, 2011, Chapter 12, PleaBargaining and Guilty Pleas).
Types of Plea Bargains
When it comes to pleabargaining, there are two different types that can be offered to the defendant by the prosecutor: sentence bargaining and charge bargaining....

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PleaBargaining Paper
PleaBargaining Paper
Advantages and disadvantages of pleabargaining is that some bad and some type of good will always come out of it. Advantages help the court manage the case and disadvantages can be a problem for the court and also to the defendant that's asking for a pleabargaining. These advantages can put a bad taste in the prosecutors mouth about the defendant if their plea isn’t sincere, the system have to feel where you are coming from and also agree with it. Show some type of affection when standing before a juror.
Pleabargaining is an arrangement between a prosecutor and defendant. During the pleabargaining the defendant plead guilty to a charge that will give him or her lesser time. When asking for a pleabargaining the defendant is confessing to committing a crime and hopes that the prosecutor will take in consideration that the person did decide to confess in front of the jury about he or she wrong doing. The advantages of a pleabargaining is that it prevents the prosecutors from doing a lot of work. It is a factor of submitting a crime before the judge. It prevents many cases from going to trial and makes prosecutors job a lot more easier. If the plea isn't...

...PleaBargaining
Alicia Aaron
CJA/224
May 26, 2013
Donald Gregory
PleaBargaining
Most cases are resolved through plea bargains. This is resulting from negotiations between the prosecutor and defense attorney. Plea bargains can be made at any stage of the criminal justice process. Plea bargains can be either a charge bargains or sentence bargains. There are advantages and disadvantages with plea bargains. With plea bargains, it can reflect the due process and crime control of the criminal justices.
Plea bargain is an argument between the prosecutor and the defendant to plead guilty to a crime to receive a lesser charge or sentence rather than going to trial and getting a harsher sentence or charge. These bargains are another way for the prosecutor to have the defendant to testify against other defendants on other cases as well as the trail they are in. Plea bargains are another way to help reduce cases from going to trial. Usually please bargains are between the council and the defense attorney but the judge can have a factor in it depending on the jurisdiction. They can work with the judge for a predetermined sentence. If the prosecutor goes back on the agreement, the defendant can ask the judge for relief. The judge may use different tactics to go about this such as withdrawal of the agreement or have the...

...PleaBargaining
University of Phoenix
CJA/373 – Criminal Court Systems
Mario D’Adamo
Week Four - Individual Assignment
July 14, 2010
PleaBargaining
Introduction
Much of the criticism leveled at the legal system in general and the criminal justice system in particular is well-deserved, but one feature of the criminal justice system poorly understood and thus unfairly judged by both the public and the media, is the process of pleabargaining. Because criminal defendants have no incentive to plead guilty as charged, and because the number of cases that would otherwise need to be tried vastly exceeds the resources available to try them, pleabargaining is a strategy for avoiding total gridlock.
Definitions of PleaBargaining
The process of negotiating an agreement among the prosecutor, defense attorney, and the court as to what an appropriate plea and associated sentence should be in a given case (Criminal Law Today).
A preconviction deal-making process between the state and the accused in which the defendant exchanges a plea of guilty or nolo contendere (which means plea of no contest to charges) for a reduction in charges, a promise of sentencing leniency, or some other concession from full, maximum implementation of the conviction and sentencing authority of the court (Criminal...